


Night for many miles, and then

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:44:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>The way it's night for many miles, and then suddenly / it's not, it's breakfast</cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	Night for many miles, and then

It's dark when Sam falls asleep, head pressed against the chilly window, and it's dark when he wakes up, the dark of four a.m. on a two-lane road where the lights are few and far between. Dean is humming along softly with whatever country song is playing on the radio. Sam closes his eyes tight and concentrates, makes out the deep rumble of Johnny Cash's voice over the static and the familiar sound of the tires rolling over asphalt.

He opens his eyes again, yawns, and stretches as much as he can without smacking Dean in the head, though the thought is tempting.

"Hey," Dean says, glancing over at him. He looks tired, eyes small and dry in his face.

"Hey," Sam answers around another yawn. "Want me to drive for a while?"

Dean shakes his head. "I'm good." Sam waits for the usual spiel, Johnny Cash on the radio, my best girl on the road, my brother by my side--what more can a man ask for? but it doesn't come. Dean's hands are loose, easy on the wheel, but Sam can see the bruises on his knuckles, the blood and dirt under his nails.

"Rough night," Sam says, shifting in his seat, bumps and bruises from getting tossed around by demons making themselves known now that he's awake again.

Dean shrugs, fingers tapping on the steering wheel in time with whatever song is on now--Sam can't make it out through the hiss of static. He looks out the window, sees the power lines running overhead, but can't identify where they are.

He used to complain about the backroads, the winding, indirect ways Dad and Dean liked to take from one place to another, used to hate that they avoided the major highways and interstates, even though nobody liked to put the pedal to the floor on the straightaway more than Dean, and they were always in a rush to leave, in a hurry to get where they were going. It was like they wanted to make the in-between times--the times when it was just them in the car, safe from the rest of the world--last.

Sam doesn't mind so much now; the darkness is familiar, enveloping. He knows better than to think it's hiding them, but sometimes he wishes it could. Wishes it would. They're as scary as the monsters they hunt; they just look safer sometimes to human eyes.

"Bad dreams?" Dean asks, glancing over at him again, one eyebrow raised in question.

Sam shrugs a shoulder, lets out a little groan when his body protests. "I don't think so."

"You were snoring pretty good."

"I think I'm allergic to the mold in that basement." Sam doesn't know what he's talking about, but he's happy to sit here and bullshit with Dean while they drive, happy to sink back into the familiar pattern, as if nothing's changed, as if they're still who they were two or four years ago. He wonders if the first twenty-four years of his life were a lie, if who he is now is who he's always been and he just didn't know it yet, the beast hiding under his skin, waiting to rip him open on its way out. He can't quite bite back the dry little laugh that accompanies the thought of some alien baby tearing its way out of his skin.

"What?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing."

"Sam?"

"Just--nothing." Sam shrugs again, ignoring the ache in his shoulders. He doesn't know if Dean's going to let it go or not. He'd like to think there was a time he could have accurately predicted his brother's response ninety-nine percent of the time, but even if that was true once, it hasn't been for a long time. Definitely not since they reunited, and not since Dean got back from hell. Maybe not since Dean made the deal in the first place. Maybe never.

"_Sam_." It's not a question this time, but the implicit demand in it doesn't make Sam's hackles rise the way it usually would--he's too tired and hollowed out for that, too afraid of what his anger and resentment might cost. Have cost already.

"Alien babies," he mumbles, embarrassed now.

"Alien babies?" Dean repeats incredulously. "Like, the kind that claw their way out of your chest cavity and do a little song and dance?"

"Without the song and dance." Sam smiles at the image, though. "Possibly there is a hat."

"Babies come with hats," Dean says, nodding like this makes sense.

Sam wonders whether this qualifies as the weirdest conversation they've ever had, which is really saying something. "What?"

"When they're in the hospital, they put these little white beanies on 'em, with stripes. Pink and blue stripes." Dean sounds nostalgic now, wistful. "I remember Dad brought me to see you right after you were born. They let me hold you. I drew on the nametag of your cradle thingy when Mom was feeding you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I drew a star. In blue, 'cause you were a boy. At least, that's what the doctor said." His mouth quirks into an amused half-grin.

Sam ignores the dig, glad to see Dean can find enough good humor to make a bad joke. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah." It's Dean's turn to shrug a shoulder. He doesn't say anything else for a few minutes, and Sam's worn out enough that he's thinking of going back to sleep. The radio hisses with static that occasionally resolves into a Steve Earle song. Sam is close to dozing when Dean says, "I understand why she did it."

It takes Sam a minute to get it--they haven't talked about it at all, not with Bobby and not with each other. He'd rather talk about the alien babies again (he'd rather an alien baby rip its way out of his chest, but what are the odds of that happening?), but it's out there now, and he can't make Dean take it back, can't pretend it didn't happen. "Yeah," he says, and the futility of the gesture makes bile rise up in his throat.

"It's not like we couldn't have rigged something." Dean's voice cracks and he stops, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. "I would have paid good money to see her go all Ripley on the devil."

"He wouldn't have stood a chance," Sam agrees, managing to keep his own voice steady.

"We're gonna get him," Dean says, all anger and determination, but Sam can hear the desperation, the uncertainty bleeding through underneath.

He remembers when Dean was able to hold it together better, able to keep that game face on. He wonders if it's just that Dean's walls are so cracked they can't be fully mended, or if he's finally grown up enough to pay attention to the cracks that were always there. Either way, right now, he wishes he couldn't, but he knows how useless, how dangerous, wishing can be.

"We're gonna kill that son of a bitch, Sam, and we're gonna do it before his big date in Detroit." Dean's voice wavers again on the last word. Sam doesn't ask why. He doesn't need to hear Dean's doubts when he can feel them pressing in on him every moment of every day, doubling the weight of his own.

"Yeah," he says again, because he wants to believe it, believe in Dean, in himself, the way he used to.

Dean reaches over, his hand landing heavy on Sam's knee for a few seconds before returning to the steering wheel. The heat of the touch lingers, warming Sam all over for a little while.

He dozes again, fitfully, the staticky hiss of the radio seeping into his dreams, like promises whispered by forked tongues. He wakes when the car stops and the engine is turned off. He opens his eyes, squinting against the brightening gray dawn, to see a blinking sign for Bob's Blue Plate Diner.

"Come on, sleepyhead," Dean says, shaking his knee even though he's already awake. "Let's go feed that alien baby." Dean's grin is wide and, as far as Sam can tell, real. It calls up an answering grin he can't stop from spreading across his face, even if he wanted to.

"Okay," he says, stepping out onto the gravel of the parking lot. "But I'm not wearing any hats."

"We'll see about that," Dean says, elbowing him in the ribs as they walk to the diner's door. The sun peeks over the horizon, and Sam's belly rumbles, greeting another day.

end

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary from "Meanwhile" by Richard Siken. Dean quotes Toby Ziegler.


End file.
